The tournament was privately devised and funded by wealthy American businessman Allen Stanford, who held Antiguan dual nationality.[1] It has been alleged that Stanford's creation of the tournament was a method of laundering his income from the fraudulent business schemes for which he is now serving a lengthy penal sentence in the USA.
19 teams took part in the inaugural knock-out tournament and 20 teams took part in the second tournament (although 21 teams were originally scheduled to take part). The 2008 season was part of the official calendar of the WICB.[2]
2006 tournament
In 2006 a total of 16 teams was in the competition and the final was played between Guyana led by Ramnaresh Sarwan and Trinidad led by Daren Ganga, And what a trilling final it was, one where Guyana took the trophy and 1 Million USD home, Travis Dowlin was an instrumental part of them winning scoring 80 from 60 but had to retire hurt and Ramnaresh Sarwan saw them to the finish line with his 49 from 40. This was the beginning of T20 cricket in the West Indies.
Initially it was planned to include two additional teams from the region in the 2008 competition, Cuba and the Turks and Caicos Islands, increasing the number of teams participating to twenty-one (21).[3]
However, since the application required by US citizens (such as Stanford himself) and organisations to interact with the island under the United States embargo against Cuba was rejected, Sint Maarten (Cuba's destined opponent in the preliminary round) received a bye.[4]
